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   From: catoni88@sympatico.cat   
      
   GunHuggers Are Despicable Socialist Parasites   
      
   Blue State, Red Face: Guess Who Benefits More From Your Taxes?   
      
      
   Picking up on yesterday's theme, the fiscal cliff, let's look   
   at the wider context to the argument between left and right   
   over taxes and spending cuts.   
   Michael Moran Michael Moran   
      
   Michael Moran is an author and geopolitical analyst.   
      
   There are serious economists who study the difference between   
   what our states pay in taxes and how much they get in return   
   from the U.S. government. These people generally don’t draw   
   political, let along moral, judgments from these numbers.   
      
   I’m under no such constraint. The numbers, for decades now,   
   have been quite clear: With some exceptions, what we regard as   
   red states are sent a whole lot more of your hard-earned tax   
   dollars than the traditional blue states. In effect,   
   supposedly indolent, “tax and spend” liberals actually   
   subsidize the individualistic, pure, and hard-working   
   lifestyle of our conservative countrymen.   
      
   Don’t believe me? Well, there’s plenty of room for quibbling   
   about what constitutes a tax payment vs. a federal benefit.   
   Let’s hash that out below in the comments section. But for   
   simplicity's sake (and to account for the fact that it’s hard   
   to label some states as purely red or blue, I’ve taken the   
   most recent Electoral College Map from RealClearPolitics—which   
   shows how these states would likely vote if the presidential   
   election were today—and cross-referenced it with numbers from   
   one of those places peopled by serious economists: the   
   nonpartisan Tax Foundation.*   
   ElectoralOct23   
      
   The results will stun many people, though not me: I’ve been   
   telling my Tea Party relatives this for years. Here’s a list   
   of the top 10 states that got the most back in terms of   
   federal benefits, followed by the bottom 10. I’ve added the   
   reasons why, when they’re obvious, in the space to the right.   
      
   To save space below, “pension benefits” include both Medicare   
   and Social Security; “anti-poverty aid” includes Head Start,   
   Low Income Home Energy Assistance, Food Stamp and nutrition   
   programs for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and several   
   school-lunch-style benefits.   
      
   Top Ten (Source: Tax Foundation):   
      
   1.        New Mexico           Indian reservations, military   
   bases, federal research labs, farm subsidies, retirement   
   programs   
      
   2.        Mississippi              Farm subsidies, military   
   spending, nutrition and anti-poverty aid, retirement programs.   
      
   3.        Alaska                     Per capita No 1 recipient   
   of federal benefits; infrastructure projects, DOT and pork   
   projects.   
      
   4.        Louisiana                 Disaster relief, farm   
   subsidies, anti-poverty and nutrition aid, military spending.   
      
   5.        W. Virginia              Farm subsidies, anti-   
   poverty and nutrition aid.   
      
   6.        N. Dakota               Farm subsidies, energy   
   subsidies, retirement and anti-poverty programs, Indian   
   reservations.   
      
   7.        Alabama                 Retirement programs, anti-   
   poverty and nutrition aid, federal space/military spending,   
   farm subsidies.   
      
   8.        S. Dakota                Retirement programs,   
   nutrition aid, farm subsidies, military spending, Indian   
   reservations.   
      
   9.        Virginia                   Civil service pensions,   
   military spending, veterans benefits, retirement, anti-poverty   
   aid.   
      
   10.     Kentucky                  Retirement programs,   
   nutritional and anti-poverty aid, farm subsidies.   
      
   Now consider the bottom 10, i.e., the ones that give more to   
   the federal government in taxes than they get in return. From   
   1 to 10, they are:   
      
   New Jersey, Nevada, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Minnesota,   
   Illinois, Delaware, California, New York, Colorado.   
      
   Anything strange about that list? Yes, they are all blue   
   states (or the deepest of purple).   
      
   Adding to this fallacy are the assumptions surrounding Mitt   
   Romney’s now infamous comments about the indolent “47 percent”   
   of Americans who regard themselves as victims and therefore   
   pay no taxes. As the American Conservative magazine (no less)   
   pointed out recently, nine of those 10 states are in the red-   
   as-ruby Old Confederacy.*   
   non-payers-by-state   
      
   Put another way, again by the American Conservative, “On the   
   other hand, eight of the ten states with the highest non-   
   payment rates are solidly Republican. The exceptions are New   
   Mexico and Florida.”   
      
   Is your mouth agape?   
      
   Now, one more cross-reference: these facts compared with the   
   know-nothing rhetoric of the Tea Party. There are only two   
   ways to parse that result: one is ignorance—which we should be   
   willing to forgive in anyone as long as they revise their   
   views when faced with reality.   
      
   And the second? Selfish hypocrisy. How else can you explain   
   the fact that the denizens of the most welfare dependent   
   states in the country—dare we say, those who enjoy the most   
   benefits from socialism—profess to abhor welfare?   
      
   This is a far cry from what most people think. My sense is   
   that, if you asked the average American, they would assume   
   that states benefiting most from federal spending are exactly   
   the opposite—you know, those populated with Ronald Reagan’s   
   “welfare queens” and lazy unionized auto workers.   
      
   I’ll be the first to admit this isn’t a black-and-white   
   exercise. Plenty of questions need to be settled before clear   
   judgments can be made. For instance, does an Army base and the   
   federal money that goes into keeping it running and paying its   
   troops count as a benefit? (It does in my book.) What about a   
   federal prison? (Yeah, jobs and the tax revenues they generate   
   should count there, too.) A private university that is   
   showered with federal research dollars? (Again, yes, those   
   funds count, too.)   
      
   But those questions get harder.   
      
   Agricultural subsidies? How do we count them—and do we   
   subtract the tax revenues generated by the jobs the farm   
   creates or the export earnings it provides?   
      
   And what about defense contractors? Connecticut, Washington   
   state, and California are chock full of weapons merchants.   
   They provide jobs, export income, and many other benefits.   
   Should we count as a federal inflow to those states the money   
   spent, say, on Sikorsky aircraft contracts in Connecticut? And   
   how do we factor in the taxes those companies paid (assuming,   
   unlike nearby General Electric, they actually paid taxes)?   
      
   And I admit, maybe we should dock Connecticut and New Jersey   
   for the remaining outstanding balance of the TARP program?   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)